


anticipation

by jdphoenix



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Gen, Zutara Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-24 19:40:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20019940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: Zuko has been barred from the Fire Lady's chambers.





	anticipation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Zutara Week 2019's day one prompt: gifts. I fully intended for this to include Katara actually giving Zuko his ~gift but then the fic decided to stop before she showed up. Hopefully my other zutara week offerings will include both characters.

Zuko is Fire Lord. Descended of the first fire bender. Ruler of this nation. He can travel anywhere—no one would dare bar any of the capital’s doors to him and surely his dear friend the Avatar would take him anywhere in the world he wished, he has only to ask—except for the one place he most wants to be.

Tradition dictates that he cannot enter the Fire Lady’s chambers until the bells toll. And so he remains trapped, locked in a cage the whole world wide while he waits for that fateful sound.

He wonders, while he waits, how his ancestors did it. Ozai he can understand, but Iroh? How could he bear to wait and wait and _wait_ -

“Whoa whoa _whoa!_ ” Sokka drops the shield Toph gifted him just yesterday. Metal so thin the edges can cut like a blade, but strong enough to stop one of Toph’s very own boulders, assuming the arm behind it is up to the task. Unfortunately it appears to be very conductive to heat and glows even after it hits the ground. “I didn’t come out here to be flambe’d!”

“Then why did you?” Zuko asks. Actually he kind of snarls it. He’s feeling a lot like his old self, that idiot kid who thought he could earn back his father’s love and expected everyone to get out of his way.

Sokka gestures to the edge of the courtyard where several of the palace guard are receiving medical treatment from those waterbenders not currently tending the Fire Lady.

“I kind of wanted to make sure there would be some guards left to protect my nephew once he’s born. And I didn’t think you were gonna try to _kill_ me. This was supposed to be a friendly spar.”

Zuko runs his hand through his hair. He’s let it grow long—another tradition that’s easier to maintain to keep the sages appeased—and has the sudden urge to burn off the ends just to stop it annoying him.

He’s been like this all day. The baby, Katara said before they parted ways, is sure to be a firebender, as her first birthing pains came at sunrise. Though it’s past noon now, Zuko’s fire hasn’t ebbed; it’s been licking at his nerves all day and he suspects, if it lasts that long (Agni, he hopes it doesn’t last that long), the dead of night will see him feeling as energized as the break of dawn.

“I should be in there,” he says, closing his fist around a ball of flame just to remind himself he still has that much control. If he can control his fire, he can control his heart—Iroh used to say that. Or was it the reverse? _A bender must first control the fire in his heart before he can control the fire in his hands_. Yeah, that sounds right.

“Listen, buddy, I know it’s hard but-”

“No,” Zuko says, and the fire sparks back to life at his hand when his heart rises in anger, “you don’t. You were there with Suki when Shay was born.” Like Zuko should be with Katara. He looks wistfully to the palace doors. How easy would it be to push through them and make his way along the familiar corridors to her side?

“Yeah, and it was _terrible_.”

Nothing could have pulled Zuko back from the edge more completely than Sokka’s pronouncement. He snaps around, for the first time turning his attention completely—or as completely as is possible when it feels as though his very heart is in the Fire Lady’s chambers—towards him.

Sokka looks small and almost shameful. His hand pulls furtively at his wolf’s tail before falling away. “I couldn’t _do_ anything,” he confesses. “I know why you wanna be there—you and Katara fought side by side so many times, you wanna fight with her now too, but you can’t. This is her fight, you can’t help her.”

“But I could be with her.” And he’d know. Half his anxiety is the waiting, the fear that every distant sound is the beginning of the bells—either bright and joyful announcing the heir’s birth or solemn and grieving, ushering the nation into mourning.

“No, you can’t. Katara knows why, she wouldn’t want you there.”

It’s true. Though at first she called it antiquated foolishness, she admitted that in the water tribe it’s the same: men are banned from the birthing tents. And she recognizes the need for it here. While many love and respect her as Fire Lady, seeing the joining of their peoples as a lasting sign that the time of war is finally ended, some are not so pleased. A commoner may marry a foreigner for love but the Fire Lord? It’s a wonder his ancestors haven’t risen from their graves in protest.

And so, to placate those who see their marriage as a sign of an end to all the Fire Nation ever was, they hold to tradition wherever they can. Katara insisted they could do it here and Zuko agreed.

He can’t remember why now.

“Seriously,” Sokka says, laying a hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “If you were there, she’d probably be telling you how much she hates you, calling you jerkbender, swearing she’ll never let you touch her again. Better not to remind her you’re the cause of all the pain she’s going through.” He nods sagely, as though this will be a great comfort.

“Thanks.”

“No problem, buddy, I’m always happy to share my fatherly wisdom. Hey, while we’re here, why don’t I teach you how to fake being asleep when you just know the baby’s crying ‘cause he needs a change real bad?”

Zuko doesn’t get a chance to roll his eyes and is saved from the forthcoming lesson by the bang of doors swinging wide. Every eye turns to Iroh as he strides into the sunlight. In the distance, bells ring out, as bright and cheerful as the smile on Iroh’s face.

“The prince wishes to meet his father.”

Zuko is the Fire Lord. But that doesn’t stop him running like the Blue Spirit to welcome his son into the world.


End file.
